Create a Positive Buying Experience Last Minute
viva | Experience Last Minute22 Sep 2010
Create a Positive Buying Experience
A few years ago, when I worked at Cadillac, we studied the customer-buying experience in great detail. Our customers talked about how uncomfortable they were when buying a car. They felt cheap and as if the dealer was taking advantage of them in the negotiations. The proverbial used automobile salesman approach was well earned.
Customers typically felt as though the negotiations were not honest and above board. They would make an offer. The salesman would disappear to check with the income manager to see if the customer offer could possibly be accepted. The customers believed that the salesman was actually in the break room having a cigarette, making them sweat. In that way, they would be more likely to accept any counteroffer he made.
The customers believed these negotiations were insincere. They felt cheated. How could they know that they had received the ideal price on the car? Their neighbors bragged about the deal that they had received. Was the price they negotiated as good, or, did they lose out in the deal? No matter what eventually happened, the customer often felt bad about the experience. They stated so in our research and in J. D. Power surveys about the buying experience. But we were in the business of making the customers feel good about their purchase, not uncomfortable!
When GM decided to create Saturn, the intent was to create a new customer experience. GM had not performed particularly well in the small automobile market. To compete with the Japanese, top management decided to locate Saturn in Tennessee, away from Detroit and all that was typical of GM. Many of the leaders assigned to Saturn were from Cadillac and were aware of the research concerning the purchasing experience. They set out to create, as they stated in advertising, a decidedly different customer buying experience.
Saturn management listened carefully to customers. For starters, executives decided that there would be one price, and it would not be negotiable. In that way, the buyer need not worry that someone else was getting a superior deal. The hard sell approach was dropped. Customers were encouraged to look over the automobiles and ask questions, but the intent was to let the customers and automobiles interact on their own, without the salesperson being involved until needed or unless there was a question.
This approach was founded upon serious retraining on the part of the income staff. They were taught what tactics and income strategies would create the ideal income experience for the customers. The Saturn ad campaigns echoed the income strategy. They highlighted the income experience as being different, clean and fun. They showed salespeople driving hundreds of miles to show a automobile to a customer in a remote location. The message from Saturn was clear: We want you to have a pleasant income experience, and you will love your car! Saturn executives had listened and heard their target market asking for change in how automobiles were sold.
The entire income experience was designed to relieve the customer anxiety about the buy price and the buy decision. Saturn was the first new automobile division for a U.S. automotive manufacturer since Ford introduced the Edsel in the late 1950s. Saturn leaders had been given a chance to design their income process and customer experience from a clean sheet of paper. They listened well and reinforced the message in their ads. The focus was on having a great income experience as much as it was about the innovative qualities of the car. In a very real sense, they were selling the customer buying experience.
Saturn income for the first couple of years were quite brisk. Saturn products and the income experience continue to evolve. Sales growth was superior than 6 percent for both 2006 and 2007. Saturn has been healthy to launch innovative new products while maintaining the fun and clean mantra of the customer income experience.
Obviously, the experience after the customer has purchased the automobile is important in the long run. However, Saturn was launched in an attempt to change the customer experience with GM small cars. By nearly any measure, including sales, that was reached by listening well to what the customers described as their desirable experience as well as the pains that they had experienced.
Chris Stiehl is an author (co-author of the soon to be released Pain Killer Marketing), instructor and consultant. He has 35 years of experience working in Fortune 500 companies to improve customer satisfaction and performance.Find out more at http://www.stiehlworks.com.
